The Power of One… is one person’s willingness to help another, one person’s commitment to love the world, one person’s passion to set in motion a ripple of such magnitude that it creates a sea change.
Imagine if a small woman in India thought that caring for the poor and dying was too much trouble we might never have been inspired by a nun named Theresa.
Or, if 12-year old Craig Kielburger had ignored the newspaper report of a murdered Pakistani child laborer his own age, and instead continued his search for his favorite comic strip, thousands of children might still be enslaved.
Robert Kennedy said, “Each time a person stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” (End quote.)
Until your arms outstretched become like wings you will never know what it means to soar to the height of your potential or understand the immense power of your embrace.
Until you look into the eyes of a stranger and see your reflection you will never know the sweet taste of compassion.
And until you experience failure you will never dare laugh at its impotence or realize how much you’re admired for your courage. Is it any wonder why we fall in love with the bravest person in the room, the one who stumbles, then gets up and tries again? It’s because that’s how we want to be!
As Joseph Campbell said, “If you take one step toward the Gods they will take ten steps toward you.”
In the end, the sages, mystics, and elders that I’ve had the privilege to live among in the most remote parts of the world understood that the power in you is connected to the whole. And that as Your light shines, the world is illuminated.
This is the Power of ONE…ONE Person, ONE Planet, ONE People.